


If You'd Let Me

by dei-chan (skyvein)



Series: MakoRin Week 2015 [5]
Category: Free!
Genre: ASDFGHKKFHGGHFHF I'M SO LATE UGH, M/M, MakoRin Week, Post-Canon, Proposals~, and some fluff-ish to make up for my failure as a human, sliiiiiight language, some reigisa if you squiiiiiint real hard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-02
Updated: 2016-01-02
Packaged: 2018-05-11 02:26:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5610442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skyvein/pseuds/dei-chan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On a cold Christmas night, Rin comes in dreadfully late for their party – for the third time in three straight years, jeez, so it was beginning to become a 'we're-not-surprised-anymore' kind of thing.<br/>//or//<br/>Rin is acting super weird, and it's takes Makoto an entire evening to learn why.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If You'd Let Me

**Author's Note:**

> AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH I'M SO FACKING LATE BUT BUT BUT I JUST GOT BACK FROM HOLIDAY WITHOUT WIFI SO I COULDN'T POST ANYTHING UNTIL NOW ;w;   
> I figured I'd post this first before finishing up the rest ughhh I'm so sorry I'm a god damn failure  
> please enjoy while i go slam my stupid head on the wall...

On a cold Christmas night, Rin comes in dreadfully late for their party – for the third time in three straight years, jeez, so it was beginning to become a _we're-not-surprised-anymore_  kind of thing. He's clutching a terribly-wrapped bundle in his hands, and this time he's late by an entire hour, not just a couple of minutes. 

Despite this, there is a wickedly-crooked smile on his face and an unabashed look in his eyes that is so bright it blinds, as he stumbles in, eyelashes brushed by snow. He breathes out a low, "Sorry I'm late again", before sinking into a chair, his fist still clenched tight around something Makoto cannot clearly see.

"Did you get it?" he hears Sousuke ask quietly, when he thinks that Makoto isn't listening. Makoto is. 

"Yeah," Rin mumbles, his voice a muted diminuendo against the chatter, eyes trained resolutely on the embers flickering at the fireplace. He makes no attempt to explain why he is late this time round – which is strange, considering that it's nearly tradition for him to make up a far-fetched excuse each year – or why he's holding something in his fists that he won't show, not even when Makoto moves beside him to take a better look.

"What's that, Rin?" he asks conversationally, tone bright, and his boyfriend's body seizes up entirely, as if he's been scorched by flame. 

"What?" Rin starts, looking away, hands moving behind his back in a pathetic attempt to cover up. "What's what?" Cheeks blushing a light pink, he's refusing to meet Makoto's eyes again, the way he always does when he's telling a terrible lie. 

Makoto opens his mouth, only to have Sousuke cut in quickly with a calm "It's nothing. I had Rin get something for me, and there was probably a long queue. That's why he's so late." 

He frowns, but decides not to push. "Oh. Okay." he says, shaking it off with a small shrug. 

He pretends not to notice Sousuke and Rin share a communal look of relief, before letting out soft sighs. 

"So, Rin—" he starts, trying to change the topic, but Nagisa passes by that exact same moment, holding a plate of marzipan as he harrumphs loudly, interrupting them all.

"Hey hey hey Mako-chan!" he says brightly, taking the initiative to hook his arms around Makoto's, before dragging him towards the table. "There're loads of good food you need to try! Haru-chan worked really hard on them, you know!"

Makoto opens his mouth again to protest, but Nagisa stuffs a marzipan pig into his mouth, before turning away, tightening his hold on Makoto as he chatters on about tarts and cookies and other assorted treats. 

Makoto splutters, before swallowing, his mouth still tingling with a saccharine aftertaste that he wasn't sure if he liked. Nagisa's grip on his sleeve has never once faltered, and he's peering at Makoto, head cocked slightly, reminding Makoto very much of a small puppy pulling on its owner's leash. His rose-quartz eyes are round, brimmed with an almost childlike demand, as he whines, "C'mon, Mako-chan!"

Sometimes, he thinks, Nagisa is a force of nature all on his own.

Shaking his head, he breaths out a gentle sigh, and spreads an affectionate smile on his face.

"Okay."

* * *

At the end of their evening, they all sit by the table, wrapped up in scarves and quilts as Haru drags out his massive log-cake. The fire warms their cheeks into a mellow red, and in the flickering Christmas lights draped haphazardly all around them (Nagisa's work, for sure), the room is painted with a warm yellow and orange. Makoto thinks that he likes this part best out of the whole day—watching Nagisa sink against Rei, eyelids drooping slightly; watching Sousuke and Rin mess around with the Christmas stockings and fight for the last piece of treacle tart. He shares a little smile with Haru, who's watching them all with his calm gaze, and thinks to himself that _this, this is perfect_.

After they've all passed out all their gifts, Rin drops down on his knees, twining his gentle fingers into Makoto's left hand as he breaks into possibly the most fragile grin Makoto has ever seen. 

As if on cue the entire room hushes, leaving their seats to crowd dutifully around them both as if in anticipation. Makoto stops mid-bite, his fingers freezing around his cake as he struggles to process why on earth Nagisa and Rei have shoved entire brownies into their mouths in a pretty on-point imitation of chipmunks. The cake kind of crumbles in his fingers, icing dripping messily onto his jeans as Rin clears his throat, feeling slightly embarrassed as the room watches them. 

"R-Rin?"

His breath catches in his throat. Falls from slippery fingers, only for its descent to be interrupted by a tangle of warmth at the crook of his chest. The cake he is holding drops back onto the plate, leaving velveteen smears on the cornflower-blue ceramic, speckled by scarlet raspberries—and Makoto feels his heart drop, too.

"Makoto, I love you."

More embarrassed than curious now, he opens his mouth to let Rin know that he loves him too – and jeez, there's no need for Rin to kneel down like this on Christmas, for the love of God, and _if_ he would just stand back up and let Makoto finish his cake because—

He's consciously aware of himself dimly blinking as Rin draws out a little suede box, cradling it tenderly between his fingers like a broken fledgling. Makoto watches him bite his lips – and thinks, _oh, beautiful_  to himself – as Rin says that he doesn't want anything for this year; that he doesn't want anything except Makoto; and he'll never, _ever_  want anything for as long as he lives if only Makoto can stay by his side, and it's so completely selfish of him, but please, _please_ —

"—I'll love you forever and ever, if you'd let me?"

_oh_. 

Everything kind of shatters after that—but in a good way; in a way that makes the delicate pieces fall together again to make something new, something more perfect than before.

"What kind of question is that?" Makoto breathes, heart ragged in his chest, and Nagisa lets out a loud whoop in the background, like he was the one getting proposed to (he sees Rei adjusting his glasses there). "Yes. Yes, _please_."

Rin makes a choked sob, a mixture of relief and happiness and disbelief and pure, unadulterated exhilaration bleeding together like veins of watercolour. 

Biting down hard on the smile on his face, Makoto shuts his eyes, pressing them tight so that he won't cry, because he's an ugly crier—and there are pieces of himself falling apart as he breathes, crumbling into dust when Rin pulls him close. He can't afford to lose any tears when he's trying so hard to catch himself, but that's okay, since Rin is there to catch him.

Rin holds him close. Holds him _so_  close that he can hear the ragged heartbeat pulsing between them in tandem like fireflares at midnight. Grasps the collar of his shirt to press their bodies together, whispering his name into the crook of his neck like a song that Makoto will never tire of, sporadic and perfect and flawless in every way conceivable. 

"Makoto, Makoto, Makoto, _Makoto_."

Rin smiles again, heartachingly tender, and reaches up to cup his face between the curves of his fingers. Makoto feels so full and whole that his chest is about to burst. It's like his heart is splitting by the seams and his heartstrings aren't strong enough to hold the pieces together (not yet, not without Rin)—but at least the cracks and chinks running vein-deep in them have been smoothed out with sandpaper fingers.

Makoto's breath tangles in his throat when Rin presses his forehead close, winding his fingers into olive hair, around and around and _around_  like the swirling of a gentle breeze.

Then, Haru coughs – ever the impatient, but that's alright when they're all so used to it – saying flatly, "We're right here, you know."

"Timing, Haru.  _Timing, if_  you have any goddamn sense of it, you moment-killing fucker." Rin snaps, sniffling slightly as he draws away; and it's a shame, because Makoto was just getting used to his warmth being there with him, like sharing a bed on a winter night.

"Took you long enough, RinRin!" Nagisa grins, bright like the sun, confetti scattered in his hair like sprays of dewy flowers glinting in the light, oddly triumphant. 

The redhead turns pink, stifling his blush with the back of Makoto's hand, as if pressing his warm cheeks to them would bring the heat away, draw the flush from the curves of his cold-lipped skin.

"S-Shut up, Nagisa."

"Aren't you going to give Makoto-senpai the ring?" Rei chips in, and Sousuke gives a bark of sudden laughter. Rin's face blooms once more, in a way that was beautiful to behold. 

"Yes, right." he coughs, fumbling with the box. "The ring. Of course."

"Was that what you and Sousuke were talking about just now?" Makoto teases, giving Rin a soft nudge, a brilliant smile playing on the edge of his lips.

Rin turns an even deeper shade of sunset red, averting his eyes. "Maybe." he mutters, tone laced with a forced detachment that Makoto can always recognise as embarrassment.

Stifling a chuckle, Makoto watches his fingers shake as the box is opened—and all of the sudden the breath is stolen from him again, captured from his lungs as if by a thief in the night.

"Makoto?" Rin mumbles, untangling their fingers to slip the ring on, tracing the curves of Makoto's knuckles as his thumb brushes honeyed skin. The ring is gold—a brilliant gold of sunlight's smile, of molten rays and auriferous speckles. The surface is unbroken like calm water, smooth and unmarked, simple in a way that was very much _Rin_  – and that's not a bad thing.

"I'm sorry it's so plain." Rin says, still worrying at his lips as Makoto brings his hand up to the light, trying to remember how the ring looks on him, trying to remember how it glints like liquid and molten glass. 

"Rin, it's okay," he assures, because it is, because it doesn't matter to him—not when Rin is by his side. It doesn't matter how simple their ring is, or if they even have one, because it's honestly never made a single difference to how much he loves his other.

Smiling, Makoto realises they match—not just the glittering rings on their fingers, but where their lines meet, where Rin fits together by his side like they were made to _be_.  

Rin slips his hand into Makoto's again, and _god_ , it just feels so, so right—like filling up the missing parts in Makoto that he didn't even know he had.

* * *

Before they leave that night, Rin pulls Makoto close again, fingers tangled tight in the front of his shirt. He presses his tear-stained cheeks against the crook of Makoto's collarbone, eyes scrunched up tight like he was trying to keep his tears from falling. 

Makoto opens his mouth, but he can't find any words inside him to breathe into being—it's like they've been stolen away from his lips, but nonetheless, his throat is so _full_  it doesn't feel right to say a single thing at all.

Rin hides his face behind his scarlet hair, head tilted low, as if it'd conceal the way light would glimmer off his falling tears. His breath escapes in a low hiss as he whispers into Makoto's neck, voice rich and molten with unbridled emotion. 

"Thank you for being my future."

 

**Author's Note:**

> ;w; I'm so sorry fml it's effin' late AND crap.  
> Thank you for reading my sucky thing! This was for Christmas but eh Happy New Year everyone! Have a great year ahead!


End file.
